Exclusive: Campaigners call for government to introduce right-to-roam bill that allows people to walk around their local woodlands

Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods are off-limits to the public, buried government documents show.

The study by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango, found that 73% of English woodland is publicly inaccessible.

This article was amended on 13 March 2026 to make clear that the inaccessible trees are recorded by the Woodland Trust, but not necessarily on their land.

Source: The Guardian